Day: January 29, 2017

I can be critical of Donald Trump because I’m fair. When he does well (and in a short time, he’s done more to help America than Barack Obama did in eight years), I praise his actions. When he messes up, I’ll call him out. As a Federalist, the ability to assess appropriately is important. The same cannot be said about a vast majority in leadership or media roles on the left. Trump has them completely unhinged and their arguments are starting to betray the reality that they don’t think about subjects beyond the surface emotional response.

Attacks against Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” have been a mixed bag. There are some valid complaints coming mostly from the right; the countries banned have had zero immigrants commit fatal acts of terrorism on U.S. soil while countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Afghanistan are conspicuously left off the list. However, the majority of complaints have been extremely hypocritical. Let’s look at some.

“The ban puts Americans abroad at greater risk”

To be fair, this is actually a potentially true statement. Why would I call it hypocritical? Because it goes against their standard “religion of peace” narrative. In many ways, it makes the case for Trump’s ban. If Americans are in danger because radical Islamists will be more likely to attack them now that the ban is in place, why would we argue for bringing them into the United States? The left’s argument is basically saying that radical Islamists are a danger to Americans if we keep them out of the country, but if we let them in they’ll be less likely to commit the terrorist acts they are currently committing abroad.

If that sounds ludicrous, you’ve gone beyond the surface emotional reaction and started thinking about the situation thoroughly. Congratulations. You’re probably not a liberal.

“President Obama wouldn’t have done such a thing”

Folks, this is the real world. There are circumstances that demand actions that won’t be popular with everyone. Part of being a sovereign nation and continuing to exist involves making those tough decisions. President Trump isn’t the first to make such a decision and won’t be the last.

“The American people don’t want this”

Except they do.

This isn’t something that Trump pulled out of his hat to shock everyone. He’s been talking about this in different forms for over a year. If anything, this is more aligned with the Cruz/Paul recommendations when they were on the campaign trail instead of Trump’s initial policy proposal of a total temporary Muslim ban.

Americans knew Trump intended to do this and they voted him into the White House anyway. Did they think he was bluffing? Were the convinced that he was just a standard politician who makes promises on the campaign trail only to backtrack once he’s in office? On that last point, time will tell, but in these early days he’s been doing exactly what he said he was going to do.

Moreover, this politically incorrect perspective on immigration is one that allows for a vocal opposition, but it’s very likely a popular concept. While there’s no way to test the theory, I would say it’s a likelihood that deep down a majority of Americans want some variation of dramatically improved vetting to occur to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country.

“It’s illegal and/or unconstitutional”

On social media, everyone’s a lawyer. With access to Wikipedia, everyone is able to pass legal judgments.

Fortunately, the law doesn’t operate through social media and judges don’t refer to Wikipedia. We will, in the coming weeks, find out just how legal and constitutional Trump’s executive order really is. I won’t be shocked if it’s struck down entirely nor would I be shocked if it’s vindicated in court. That’s the unfortunate nature of our federal legal system. Activist judges are everywhere, so the legality and/or constitutionality of the executive order will be determined more by who hears the case rather than whether or not it’s valid.

This brings me to a minor conspiracy theory. I’d like to believe that the administration is generally competent. With that said, this roll out has been exceedingly sloppy:

To call it amateur would be giving it too much credit. They announced on Holocaust Remembrance Day, an event notorious for the last time people were killed after being denied as refugees by America. Staff at airports were confused and often misinformed. Known positive contributors from interpreters helping U.S. armed services to scientists invited for medical research were turned away. The administration’s legal department embarrassed itself by being unprepared. The optics were the worst to come from the White House since Benghazi.

Conspiracy theory: What if Trump wants this executive order to be shot down in the courts or restricted by Congress so he can rally his base and begin the process of consolidating power to the executive branch? Okay, so it’s much more likely that they simply rushed it all through and made mistakes along the way, but to dismiss Trump’s ability to control situations and spin them to his favor would be a huge mistake. All I’m saying is that it’s possible this is an immaculately designed ploy. We’ll leave it at that.

“World leaders are against it”

Of all the silly liberal arguments against the executive order, this is my favorite. It’s even better when they invoke that the U.N. is against it. To those who make this argument, I have one word for you: “Good.”

We’ve done enough interfering in the rest of the world and we’ve received plenty of interference as a result. If there’s one aspect of Trump’s ideology that I embrace, it’s that the globalist mentality must be addressed appropriately. We are a sovereign nation. How we defend our borders and protect our citizens is our business.

That’s not to say that the world’s opinion is irrelevant. We are the centerpiece of the world economy which means that we need free trade just as badly as they need us to freely trade with them. However, this is a security issue. It should be very tightly handled between us, the nations on the list, and nations that are directly affected by our actions.

“Other nations don’t ban based upon nation of origin”

Except they do.

The United States isn’t banned by other countries because they need our money. That’s it. Do you think that if we weren’t an important part of their economies that they wouldn’t ban us? To answer that question, we simply need to look at Israel.

There are 16 nations that ban entry from anyone with an Israeli passport. Let’s be clear: Israeli terrorists do not go around the world committing acts of terrorism like radical Islamic terrorists often do. It’s just not part of their standard operating procedure. It should be noted that of the seven countries on Trump’s list, Somalia is the only one that doesn’t ban Israelis.

Trump’s executive order has problems, but not the ones you’re hearing from mainstream media or liberal politicians. The echo chamber of leftist anti-Trump dissent is falling further into hypocrisy. It’s getting to the point that their messages are being drowned out by the laughter of those hearing them.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, in a phone call on Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump, agreed to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen, a White House statement said.

Trump, during his presidential campaign last year, had called for Gulf states to pay for establishing safe zones to protect Syrian refugees.

A statement after the phone call said the two leaders agreed on the importance of strengthening joint efforts to fight the spread of Islamic State militants.

“The president requested and the King agreed to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen, as well as supporting other ideas to help the many refugees who are displaced by the ongoing conflicts,” the statement said.

This is what you get when you have a president & administration of action vs one of hashtags.

This is a jaw-dropping exhibition of the scope of President Trump’s strategic leverage. Remember how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson refused to take the bait from Senator Marco Rubio regarding Saudi Arabia? Put this outcome in the dividend column.

I have an odd feeling the press and protesters will have very little to say about this.

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Local media was puzzled and irked as to what Trump meant by “the feds.” Does that mean the US Army? Short of widespread rioting breaking out in Chicago, that’s not likely to happen. Perhaps Trump means to dispatch FBI and DEA agents, or officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms. But the federal government already has staff from those crime fighting agencies assisting the Chicago Police in fighting its murder epidemic.

Unless there is an ongoing investigation, I don’t believe the feds are looking for the evil pony at the bottom of the manure pile–Chicago politicians and their connections to street gangs.

Street gang temple, Chicago’s South Side

Elected officials in Chicago constantly decry gun violence. But while firearms are the symptom, the disease is gang warfare. By all accounts the great majority of murders in Chicago are gang-related. Members of the Progressive Caucus on Chicago’s City Council regularly condemn “gun violence,” as do the other aldermen on the council. As for the former, like all leftists, they conspire like a chess player to advance their causes, in this instance, this means a ban on all handguns in Chicago, if not all firearms. As for the rest of the aldermen, perhaps they are cautious in condemning gang violence because some of them have ties to these criminal enterprises that are hollowing out Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods.

Six years ago Chicago Magazine, in a story about those street gang-pol connections, interviewed Hal Baskin, a former gang member who was defeated in his effort to join the City Council, about a meeting between aldermanic candidates and gang-bangers, or perhaps, according to the magazine, ex-gang bangers.

The gang representatives were interested in electing aldermen sympathetic to their interests and those of their impoverished wards. As for the politicians, says Baskin, their interests essentially boiled down to getting elected or reelected. “All of [the political hopefuls] were aware of who they were meeting with,” he says. “They didn’t care. All they wanted to do was get the support.”

Baskin declined to name names, but Chicago has learned, through other sources at the meetings, the identities of some of the participants. They include: Aldermen Howard Brookins Jr. (21st Ward), Walter Burnett Jr. (27th), Willie Cochran (20th), and Freddrenna Lyle (6th). Alderman Pat Dowell (3rd) attended a meeting; upon realizing that the participants had close gang ties, she objected but stayed. Also attending were candidates who would go on to win their races, including Michael Chandler (24th) and Roderick Sawyer (6th). Darcel Beavers, the former 7th Ward alderman who would wind up losing her race, and Patricia Horton, a commissioner with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District who lost her bid for city clerk, also met with the group.

Cochran campaign sign in Englewood

Late last year one of those underhanded aldermen, Willie Cochran, was indicted for a series of alleged financial crimes, including stealing from his ward’s charity. Part of Cochran’s ward covers the notorious Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, one of the most violent parts of “Chiraq.” And by violence of course I mean street gang violence.

Okay, I’m not an attorney, but Chicago Magazine provided us a list of names that at the very least makes them, in my opinion, persons of interest.

As for Jesse Jackson, in 1984, during his first campaign for the presidency, he publicly lauded the El Rukns for their efforts in voter registration. The year prior the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization paid the gang over $10,000 to work as poll watchers for the failed campaign of incumbent Chicago mayor Jane Bryne. At that time the party was led by Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak, then the 10th Ward alderman, who–this will sound familiar–was indicted late last year. Now a Republican, Vrdolyak is already an ex-con.

Shameful.

What can the Chicago Police do about gangs and their politician pals?

According to that Chicago Magazine article, not a heck of a lot.

Two police sources—a former gang investigator and a veteran detective—bluntly acknowledge that even if the police know of dubious dealings between an alderman and a gang leader or drug dealer, there is little, if anything, they can do, thanks to what they say is the department’s unofficial rule: Stay away from public officials. “We can’t arrest aldermen,” says the gang investigator, “unless they’re doing something obvious to endanger someone. We’re told to stand down.” The detective concurs: “It’s the unwritten rule. There’s a two-tier justice system here.”

And the criminality apparently goes past shootings, as Chicago Magazine again tells us.

Beyond providing protection from police—the gangs’ number one request—public officials can help in other ways. Gang leaders, particularly the most powerful, are usually looking to build on the riches they already have. Knowing an alderman or a state legislator—or even a congressman—can help. Traditionally, aldermen have almost total say over what gets built and what sorts of businesses open in their wards. They also have considerable sway over city contracts, which can mean tens of thousands to millions of dollars for gang-owned businesses.

The real story here is that these numbers are not unusual and people are figuring this out very quickly.

President Trump’s executive order on immigration from seven countries were Islamic Terror is a real problem has produced mass hysteria among the left, and an “what has the Roman’s ever done for us” moment from a senior NYT reporter, who asked a question that Guy Benson was kind enough to answer:

So Apart from 9/11, San Bernardino, The Boston Bombers, the Time Square Bomber, the Underwear Bomber the Ohio State attacker, the Chattanooga shooter and numerous plotter who failed, when has a Foreign terrorist every bothered us?

The NYT, the so called “Paper of Record” became Monty Python so quietly I barely noticed

I wonder how many of those card holders were not vetted properly during the Obama Years? Under Trump we are going to find out.

The left is crowing about several federal judges blocking Trump’s latest move as if this was a major earthquake, It seems to me that if after 8 years of Obama appointing federal judges, 2 of them with no restraint in the senate that the shock would be if you couldn’t find three of them willing to block a Trump order. Likewise getting 1000 anti trump protesters in a city of millions that overwhelmingly voted against him at an airport is not a great achievement.

But getting this look on radical congresswoman’s Nina Vasquez’s face by having the person she pushed to get released say on live camera that he “likes Trump”

Shawn Oakman, a member of the 2015 squad and Baylor graduate, has been indicted on a sexual assault charge.

Furthermore concerning the civil lawsuit being brought against Baylor we see this:

The woman, identified in the suit by the pseudonym Elizabeth Doe, reports being gang raped by then-Baylor football players Tre’Von Armstead and Shamycheal Chatman after a party on April 18, 2013.
Those football players were previously named as suspects in a sexual assault police report related to that date but were not charged.

The significance of is that rather than one of the many cases of post coitus regret that college tribunals nationwide have used to tar young men, and pols have used to their advantage, you had evidence brought to the attention of law enforcement, including a police report of assault on the date named in the civil suit. Furthermore such evidence was sufficient to convict at least two players and indict at east one more of actual crimes.

This tells me that the accusations against Baylor are credible, because the people making them were willing to go to law enforcement and the court system where the rules of evidence apply as opposed to sticking with a college tribunal where they do not.

Going to the law when a crime is alleged. That’s how things should be done

Don Surber author of Trump the Press is describing donald trump as the “instapresident” and is comparing Donald Trump to the Blogfather Glenn Reynolds:

And as Reynolds heads toward the 20th anniversary of his adopting the handle of Instapundit, readers see the change finally happen.

Follow the money. Online ads have eclipsed newspaper ads. Any blog that made money last year is more profitable than many newspapers in the nation, who are tossing staff overboard to keep from sinking — after wasting all that time earlier rearranging the deck chairs.

Watching Reynolds and his rebel army — read Army of Davids — is inspirational. It also made a pretty good blueprint for a presidential run.

I am sure Donald Trump incorporated the tactics into his campaign. Be quick. Be nimble. Be everywhere.

You’re probably seeing the best persuasion you will ever see from a new president. Instead of dribbling out one headline at a time, so the vultures and critics can focus their fire, Trump has flooded the playing field. You don’t know where to aim your outrage. He’s creating so many opportunities for disagreement that it’s mentally exhausting. Literally. He’s wearing down the critics, replacing their specific complaints with entire encyclopedias of complaints. And when Trump has created a hundred reasons to complain, do you know what impression will be left with the public?

He sure got a lot done.

Even if you don’t like it.

In only a few days, Trump has made us question what-the-hell every other president was doing during their first weeks in office. Were they even trying?

It doesn’t seem possible that Donald Trump has been President for less than 10 days does it?

In an article published by the Saudi daily Al Jazirah newspaper — and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) — Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh wrote that the reliance of radical Palestinian groups on armed resistance “constitutes a kind of political suicide that only political ignoramuses [can] condone.”

According to Al-Sheikh, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the sole option “that can be demanded and which enjoys the support of most of the international community.”

What the Palestinians, Al-Sheikh went on to say, “need to understand is that the Arabs of today are not the Arabs of yesterday, and that the Palestinian cause has lost ground among Arabs. This cause is no longer a top priority for them, because civil wars are literally pulverizing four Arab countries, and because fighting the ‘Islamic’ terrorism is the foremost concern that causes all Arabs, without exception, to lose sleep.

The fact that Donald Trump is taking the left’s arrows also means that Israel can take care of business and nobody is going to notice or care.

With David Ortiz, Clay Buchholz and Junichi Tazawa all gone from Boston this offseason, who’s the second longest tenured member of the Red Sox?

“Me!” Bradley said with a smile at the annual Boston Baseball Writers’ Awards Dinner last week. “That’s funny. Who would have ever known?”

Bradley made his major-league debut on Opening Day of 2013, and the only other current Red Sox in the lineup that day was Dustin Pedroia.

It’s quite a shock to realize that Pedroia is all that’s left from the 2007 championship team but it’s always a pleasure to realize that spring training is just around the corner.

A week from today Superbowl 51 will be played and while there seems to be little general interest in the game on sports talk radio there is a lot of trash talk going on, and a fair amount of it appears to be how racist Boston is and how white the Patriots are compared to other teams.

Unfortunately for Atlanta the Patriots players are not letting themselves be distracted by this nonsense because they are less concerned with racial quotas and more interested in working hard to prepare for an Atlanta Team that has already defeated two A list QB who have won Super Bowls over the last two weeks.

And anyways, if we were talking racial quotas since the US is only 11% black wouldn’t a team that had a larger number of white players be a sign of racial equality than disparity, but not only od race baiters gotta bait this tells me that the sports guys pushing this story see Atlanta not having a chance and need something to get some eyeballs.

For myself I don’t think Atlanta is going to win, but they are a good team and if they DID win I wouldn’t be all that shocked, after all when it’s one game anything can happen.

Ironically You might have noticed we didn’t have a Friday Evening Post here and Saturday’s morning’s post was a tad late, that’s because I ended up with an unexpected 3 hour work shift instead of my normal 8 and as DaWife had the day off I suggested a spontaneous day trip, which is how we ended up at an Indian Casino in Connecticut with her watching me play craps and I watching her play slots. I had packed an overnight with both laptops but she decided she wanted to sleep in her own bed so we left at 9 pm

It has actually been my plan to take a day off & surprises her with such a trip in a few weeks as the 30th anniversary of my hypothetical marriage proposal (that’s a story too long for this post) but not only did this mean I didn’t need to take an unpaid day off but the occasional bit of spontaneous pleasures when she doesn’t see it coming (even if it something small & inexpensive) is an excellent way to stay married for 30 years.

Ironically I felt a bit guilty as I skipped the March for Life because I couldn’t afford the unpaid day and here I was listening to it on the radio while driving to a casino but as my parish priest and spiritual director once reminded me. My primary vocation as a married man is to my wife and that sacrament of Marriage.

Think like that and you’ll find yourself making plans for a 29th anniversary someday.

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